All You Need to Know About Infographics: Tips, Tutorials, Guides

Let’s be honest, we don’t like to read big pieces of text. Text-heavy graphs are rather difficult for understanding, especially when we deal with numbers and statistics. That is why we use illustrations and flowcharts for such kind of information.

It’s no wonder that today we know a method to make our life easier. It called an infographic – a visual representation of study or data. But like anything else, it can be done right or wrong ( I’m sure you saw poorly ones). How to create a cool infographic? The secret is in a long time brainstorming. You need a really cool idea and good design.

1 .What is an infographic?

Infographic isn’t just a graphic material. It contains a lot of useful and interesting information that should be accurate. A successful combination of information and functional design is the key to creating a stunning infographic.

Using infographics has a huge number of pros:
1. Infographic is an easy way to represent a story or thesis. As for me, a picture really is worth a thousand words, especially on the internet.

2. You can easily share an infographic via social media.
3. Publishers that use infographics grow in traffic an average of more than 12% that those who don’t use infographics.
4. An infographic is not only a tool to educate and inform, it’s also a way to build brand awareness and inbound links.

2. What contributes to its popularity?

As you’ve already understood, an infographic is an image which contains some graphics and text (statistics) about a certain subject. But why it is so popular? The first reason is information. The data in a quality infographic is presented in a creative way. Furthermore, infographics are more interesting than text or video. In these circumstances, a good infographic can be a powerful marketing tool which will help you to gain more clients to your business.

3. Types of infographics

The most popular types of infographic are presented here:

But there are some types of infographics which make me ill:
1. The “Too Much Data” Infographic!
2. The “Too Long” Infographic! ()
3. The “Boring/Unnecessary Data” Infographic!

4. How to create a bad infographic and ruin your business.

There are a few ways to do it:

You can copy ideas from other infographics;

You can overload the minds of your readers with too many numbers in a small space;

You can create a boastful infographic: “How Cool My Company is..”;

You can present an Exel sheet as an infographic

You can use bad content! (wrong data, Wikipedia as the only source, outdated information, boring topic, bad spelling, ets.)

If you published such infographic on your blog, the consequences would be terrible. The wrong impression about your brand will destroy your reputation and users will unlike, unsubscribe and unfollow you. Therefore, the traffic to your site would decline… it is a slow death of your brand!
Don’t do it!

5. The major parts of an infographic

Any infographic is based on three pillars: visual part, content and knowledge. The visual part includes icons, colors and graphics which were used. The content usually consista of text, statistics, time frames and so on. But the most interesting and useful part of infographics is the knowledge which it delivers.

6. How to create the infographic

The distinctive feature of an infographic is a creative way to show people the message or the story being delivered. That fact that the infographic has a viral effect nowadays doesn’t mean that everybody should or can create it. Bad data visualizations can be misleading, confusing or simply wrong. Please, read this post before starting.

So, you’ve read this post and still want to create your own infographic? In this case I should warn you that it can be an intimidating process. That is why I want to show you some steps to follow. Before starting remember one simple rule: Your readers should understand the data flow !

Let’s get started

Step 1. Think of an idea

First of all you should make a list of possible ideas for your infographic, because the good idea is the fundamental component and defines the quality of the final result.

Step 2. Create a skeleton

Now create a plan to organize your data. A goal without the plan is just a wish…

Step 3. Research, using authoritative sources

Use only credible resources for your future infographic. One more advice – sift and condense the information, Google can give you piles of data on your topic. It doesn’t mean that you need to use them all This is that case when you can apply the KISS (keep it simple s…) method.

Step 4. Don’t forget about typography.

Infographic typography is a cool and eye-catching tool to convey the information to the reader. Don’t ignore it! You may use it in titles and the main content. One advice – you text should be as readable as possible.

Step 5. Colors are vital

Hope, I don’t need to tell you about the significance of color. Please, use eye-friendly colors (maybe such as pastels or bright hues ) to impact. Your infographic doesn’t necessarily need to be colorful, just remember about color psychology.

Step 6. For whom?

To get your purpose you should work around your target audience. Every infographic is created
for somebody. It will be much more effective if you know a group of people you are working for.

Step 7. Choose eye-catching graphics

There are two kinds of graphics: theme and reference graphic. A theme graphic is the main visual content with images. Reference graphic contains some sort of additional icons that help to avoid cluttering-up the design.

Step 8. Provide facts and conclusions

Share some knowledges via simple and short thesis. Don’t forget to make it simple

Step 9. Finally…the Design!

Good design is an effective way to impact! Use all your creativity to make a tremendous and stunning design!

Step 10. Edit, edit, edit….

7. Tutorials

How to Create Infographics in Adobe Illustrator

This cool and easy to follow tutorial from Designmodo.com will show you how to create the infographic using standard tools of Adobe Illustrator.

How To Create Outstanding Modern Infographics

This is an intermediate level tutorial that will take about 3 hours. Learn how to use various graph tools, illustration techniques and typography to make an accurate and inspiring infographic.

Design a Magazine Infographic

Visit this tutorial to learn more about creating of a circular-style bar graphic using basic Illustrator techniques.

The Do’s And Don’ts Of Infographic Design

This is not tutorial but I can’t ignore the article from Smasingmagazine.com.

Hope you’ve found this post useful and learned something new about infographics! This visual representation of information is a trend nowadays! So, do not hesitate to use it as well.